Jobcentre staff are being used

AS the vicious Con-Dem cuts continue to hit people across the country it has emerged that Jobcentre staff are now being told they must hit targets and prevent people getting the benefits they are entitled to.

ANOTHER day, another insight into the terrible cost of the Tories’ obsession with persecuting the ill and the disabled.

Across the UK, cuts in welfare will cost disabled people £28billion in lost benefits over the next five years.

And the very worst-off will lose up to £23,000 each over five years, according to figures from think-tank Demos.

By anyone’s standards, this is daylight robbery on some of the most vulnerable people in society. It’s robbing the poor, yet again, to pay for the errors of the rich banking elite who caused the recession in the first place.

We’ve said it before and make no apology for saying it again: How on earth can the Lib Dems actively assist with such regressive policies?

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Jobcentre staff, who are doing their best to get benefit claimants into jobs, are being told by their bosses they must fulfil targets and prevent people getting the benefits they are entitled to.

A leaked email shows staff have been warned by managers that they will be disciplined unless they increase the number of claimants referred to a tougher benefit regime.

Secret league tables could only have been drawn up through information provided by senior managers in the Department for Work and Pensions. And only Government ministers could have sanctioned these moves.

DWP Minister Mark Hoban told MPs that decisions on sanctioning claimants are “based on whether people have breached the agreements they have set out with the jobcentre”.

He said there are “no targets in place”. Really? That’s hard to believe.

But that’s the Tories for you, though. The same old poison – dished out by people so rich they will never have to swallow it themselves.